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300 Acres

Help us save 300 acres of the rainforest in 60 days by raising $73,000. Your donation will help keep the land in the hands of native people.

The 300 Acres project (http://300acres.com) is attempting to raise $73,000 in 60 days to save 300 acres of ancestral land for the Amazanga/Quichua people in Puyo, Ecuador.

We started the project on March 5 and will give our biggest outreach push and donation raising through May 5th. We only have until May 5th to attain these funds or the land will be purchased by a development group that is interested in dividing the land - potentially cutting down the old growth trees, and starting a gold mining enterprise. This is of course explicitly against the wishes of the native people of this region.

I was inspired to start this endeavor after I met Flavio Santi - a healer and advocate of the Amazanga/Quichua people, whom recently visited Google (where I work) to attend the Indigenous Mapping Network workshop co-created with Google Earth Outreach. He was one of over 100 indigenous people who came from all over the world to learn how to use Google Maps, Earth, and our ODK mobile system to preserve their land. Through an interpreter he told us his story, and I was so moved by his situation that I decided that I needed to help. That promise has led to 300acres.com

We have partnered with Natural Villages to ensure all donations are tax deductible.